wheels. Donohue said that he and Hymie Gore would take care of that.
‘How are you going to do it?’ I asked, interested. ‘Steal a car? Jump the wires?’
‘Nah,’ Black Jack said, offended. ‘We can pay cash on the line. We find a used car lot owned by Honest John, Honest Sam, Honest Abe. Now you’ve got to know that the biggest crooks in the world are the guys who start a conversation, “To be perfectly honest-” or “To be perfectly frank-” Count your rings after you shake hands with those guys. So a used car dealer who calls himself “Honest Whatever” has to be a gonif. He’ll go for a quick cash deal, no questions asked, and if we plan to use the car to crash the White House, he couldn’t care less. Hyme and me, we’ll take the Ford until we get the new wheels. Jannie, you and Dick go shopping.’
We borrowed a pencil from the waitress and wrote out our list on a paper napkin. My ballpoint pens and yellow legal pads came first. Then the men wanted shorts, underwear, socks. I marked down the sizes carefully. I wanted a new bra, at least one, and some pantyhose. We all needed cigarettes and more whiskey.
‘And a plastic picnic chest,’ Donohue reminded me. ‘Big enough for a couple of six-packs. Also some nibbles for the road: crackers, pretzels, potato chips, candy bars, gum — like that.’
‘A bottle of white wine would be nice,’ I said.
‘Why not?’ Jack said. ‘And some plastic tumblers. Don’t forget a bottle of gin and a small dry vermouth. Buy the best. I like a martini now and then.’
‘Olive or lemon?’ I asked.
‘Lemon,’ he replied, absolutely serious. ‘And a small paring knife to take off the peel.’
We returned to the motel, packed up, checked out. Donohue drove Dick and me to a shopping center on Moravia Road. As I got out of the car, he leaned close and whispered, ‘Have a good time last night?’
‘Betterthan I had the night before.’
‘You bitch!’ he said, laughing.
Then they drove away in the Ford, and Dick and I started our shopping spree. It took us almost three hours, and when we had finished, we could have used a strong packhorse. We lugged all our purchases out to the parking lot and settled down to wait.
After about fifteen minutes I said, ‘You and I decided not to take off. But maybe they have.’
‘No way,’ Fleming said definitely. ‘Jack said he’ll be back, he’ll be back.’
‘You’re a trusting soul.’
‘He needs to be trusted.’
‘Oh?’ I said, looking at him. ‘You found that out, too, did you?’
‘Sure,’ Dick said, nodding. ‘And if you need proof, here they are now.’
They pulled up in a three-year-old black Buick Riviera, Hymie Gore sitting proudly behind the wheel. There were a few nicks and scratches on the side panels, and the right fender looked like it had been crumpled, straightened, and repainted. But generally the car appeared to be in good condition.
‘The hell with the appearance,’ Donohue said, helping load up. ‘We don’t want a brand-new car that might attract attention. No one will look at this heap twice, but it’s got it where it counts: under the hood. I mean, it’s a big,
‘Any trouble buying it?’I asked.
‘Nah,’ Hymie Gore said, laughing, it was like Jack said. The guy’s name was “Honest Percy.” Jack offered him five hundred less than the marked price, in cash. He couldn’t make out the papers fast enough.’
‘Use your real name?’ Fleming asked.
‘Yeah,’ Donohue said sourly. He wasn’t happy about it. ‘I had to show my license. But I asked Percy a lot of questions about the best route to Pittsburgh. If anyone tails us this far, maybe that’ll send them on a phony chase. For a while anyway.’
We pulled away from the shopping center, headed back to Interstate Highway 95, and turned south. Hymie Gore was driving, Fleming beside him.
‘Where did you dump the Ford?’ I asked Donohue.
‘You’re the expert in crime,’ he said. ‘Wrote all those great novels. If you had to get rid of a car and didn’t want it found and identified, how would you do it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said slowly, thinking about it. ‘Drive it out to some deserted place in the country, I guess. Heavy woods would be best. Drive it off the road into the underbrush. Try to cover it over with branches. Take the license plates and throw them in the river. Either that or push the whole damned car in the river if you could do that without being seen.’
‘Too fancy,’ Black Jack said. ‘Too chancy, and too much work. What we did was this: I drove the Ford, and Hyme followed me in the Buick. I found the worst neighborhood 1 could. A real tenement slum down near the river. Talk about Bed-Sty; that place was just as bad, or worse. So I parked the Ford and got out. Left the doors unlocked and just walked away. I got in with Hyme and we took off. I guarantee you that by tomorrow morning that Ford’ll be stripped down to the bare bones. They’ll take the wheels first, then the battery, carburettor, distributor, fuel pump — anything that can be unscrewed, unbolted, or whacked off. The gang kids will take the seats for their clubhouse and the parts pirates will take everything that’s left. In twenty-four hours nothing will be left but a burned-out frame. And that’s how to get rid of a car, Jannie. The modern way.’
We stayed on 95, and went around Washington, D.C., without stopping. All I saw of the nation’s capital was a rosy glow in the sky. We had dinner at Fredericksburg, at a restaurant designed to look like the white, pillared mansion of a southern plantation. They even had plastic Spanish moss hanging from the trees outside. They featured ‘Southern Fried Chicken,’ which also might have been plastic.
Back in the car, we switched places. I drove, with Dick beside me, and Donohue and Gore in the back seat. At our last gas stop we had bought a bag of ice cubes and loaded our picnic chest. Now, as we headed south for Richmond, the weather definitely improving, Jack broke out the booze and the tumblers and served as bartender. I had white wine as 1 drove, Fleming and Gore had scotch on the rocks, and Donohue built himself a martini, complete with a paring of lemon peel.
I drove to Richmond, where we paused long enough to stretch our legs and switch positions again. Donohue and Gore moved to the front seat, Jack driving, and Fleming and I tried to get comfortable among all the gear in the back seat. I wanted to write on the yellow legal pads, bringing Project X up to date, but the light was so bad I gave up.
We continued our flight south, Donohue trying to put on the miles. He said we’d hole up for some sleep at Rocky Mount, N.C., or maybe drive straight through if traffic was light. Dick and I dozed off. I remember hearing Jack and Hymie talking in low voices, and the next thing I knew, the car was slowing. Jack was cutting to the right lane to make a turnoff.
‘Where are we?’ I asked.
‘Rocky Mount,’ Jack said. ‘Hyme and me have got to pee.’
‘Me, too,’I said.
‘Me, too,’ Dick Fleming said, rousing, yawning, stretching.
‘There’s a place, Jack,’ Hymie Gore said after we were off the highway. He pointed to a sign on our right.
It was in the shape of a rooster, outlined in red neon, with the name spelled out below in blue tubing: ‘The Game Cock.’ It looked like a roadhouse, with beer signs on the windows. We pulled into a graveled parking lot. There were a half-dozen cars, a pickup truck, a van, two motorcycles, and an enormous tractor-trailer. We heard a juke blaring country-western.
‘A real fun place,’ I said. ‘I can tell.’
‘As long as they got a can,’ Donohue said, ‘who cares? Everyone heeled? Okay, let’s lock up and see what the Game Cock’s got to offer.’
What it had to offer was a squarish room with bare wood floors, scarred and pitted. There was a stained bar along one wall. No stools; strictly for stand-up drinkers. There were tables and booths, and an empty space that apparently served as a dance floor, maybe on weekends.
When I tell you that the most attractive objects in the Game Cock were the juke box and cigarette machine, you’ll get some idea of its glories. Ugly seediness? You wouldn’t believe. The dim lighting did nothing to hide ramshackle furnishings and a general appearance of spit-on-the floor slovenliness. There was a fly-spotted sign on the wall listing the prices of hamburgers, ribs, chili, ham and cheese sandwiches, apple pie, coffee. The small
